“The worst failures are when you fail yourself, you
fail your [original] intention. I’ve come to realize
success to me is, ‘How close did I get to that original feeling that I started
with?’ The initial feeling that set me in motion that makes you have to do
something.”

Greengrass on the final scene in “Captain Phillips”:

“We spent most of the day shooting that and it was
fine, but you know when you know it’s just not it. And the clock ticks on, and
we had a hard out — we had to be off that ship at 7, I think. So it was about
half past 5, we were talking to the captain [of the rescue ship, who consulted
on the film], and we said, ‘Well, where else?’ And he said, ‘Well, when [the
captain] first came on, he would have gone to the infirmary,’ which is down the
other side of the ship. And I said, ‘Well, can we go down there and just try
something there?’ It’s kind of like a last throw of the dice, really. And he
said, ‘Yeah, sure. There’ll be a medic on duty, you can use her.

Blind panic sets in, which actually is a very good place
from which to make films, in my experience, because nobody knows what they’re doing,
least of all me — but what happens is you stop thinking about it and you start
being entirely instinctive.'”

Holofcener on unlearning things from film school:

“When I was in film school, I was taught to know why every character was there, and what every character wants, and that killed the process for me. By the time I got to 60 cards up, with everything nailed down like that, I was so bored. I would never finish a script that way. I’d either written it or created it, and so I stopped outlining, and just started writing. And it was a messier process, and a scarier process, but it’s my process… Ultimately you’re going to hear a million voices [telling you what to do, in film school and beyond], but you have to still listen to your own, and listen to your gut.”

McQueen on the auditioning process, and finding Lupita Nyong’o:

“The key to great auditions is a great casting director. Unfortunately a lot of black actresses don’t get the opportunity because there’s not a lot of roles [for black women]. Looking for Lupita was like looking for Scarlett O’Hara. There were over a thousand actresses.She was a diamond in the rough. As soon as she appeared, it was just like something else. But [casting director] Francine Maisler deserves a lot of credit. She was amazing.”